2023-05-04 05:22:09
The average price excluding tax in the countries of the euro zone has returned to its level at the end of February. But in France, it is still 16% higher than before the war.
The memory of motorists does not fail them. When they fill up their tank, they see that the price displayed at the pump for the SP95 has still not returned to the level before the start of the war in Ukraine. However, the price of a barrel of oil calculated in euros has returned to its level of mid-February 2022. And this return to normal can be seen in the price used as a reference for professionals who buy fuel, particularly in mass distribution. The SP95 listed in Rotterdam thus traded at 62 cents per liter on February 25, 2022, a level which it returned to at the end of April.
This return to the pre-war situation is also, more or less, the rule in service stations in our neighbours. The average price excluding taxes at the pump calculated every week by the European Commission was 84 cents in the euro zone at the end of last April. Exactly the same level as it posted on February 21, 2022, before the war in Ukraine panicked the markets.
France, the only country in Europe where the SP95 still costs 16% more than before the war
Certainly from one country to another, we can see small differences. The tax-free liter is now slightly cheaper than before the war, in Germany and Luxembourg, while it costs a few centimes more in Spain, Belgium or Italy. But these differences do not exceed 5%. Only one country is an exception: France.
In the days preceding the attempted Russian invasion of Ukraine, the average price excluding tax was limited to 80 cents, 4 cents less than the euro zone average. At the end of April, once more according to the European Commission, it remained significantly higher at 93 cents. This difference of 13 cents is equivalent to a 16% increase over pre-war pump prices. And this difference leads in passing to a mechanical increase in VAT of just over 2 cents collected by the State.
The boss of Super U evokes a “reconstruction of margin” of the sector
Such a difference obviously requires explanation. Asked regarding the subject, Dominique Schelcher, the boss of Système U, evokes a very likely “reconstitution of margin” and admits that even large retailers, as a whole, no longer systematically seek to drive down fuel prices in their stations. -services which account for more than half of fuel sales in France.
On the side of Ufip – the professional oil tankers’ union – we first point out that the ethanol added to conventional fuel is more expensive today and that French motorists consume more E10 (a gasoline twice as rich in fuel of plant origin than E5). And we also insist on the environmental obligations imposed on the most polluting sectors which have been tightened by decree, forcing them to increase their financial contributions via Energy Savings Certificates (EEC). As for the independent pump attendants, they certify through their spokesperson Francis Pousse, the president of Mobilians, that the level of their margins has not changed.
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